Coffeestained
by Joylyn
Summary: Rory and Jess are in college and a couple now. Brief moments in their life together.
1. Chapter One

**Title**: Coffee-stained

**Author**: Joylyn

**Rating**: R

**Pairing**: Rory/Jess, some Luke/Lorelai undertones

**Spoilers**: Up to "A Deep Fried Korean Thanksgiving" but nothing after that.  Takes place in my imagined future.

**Disclaimer**: The Gilmore Girls and their world are owned by Amy Sherman Palladino and the WB.  

**Summary**: In college and a stable relationship, some moments in the life of Rory and Jess.

**Author's Note**: This story will comprise of short chapters.  I won't beg for feedback or anything – I'll post whenever I have a new scene.  More details on how things came to be as they are will come later.  

The phone rings once, then twice, and again.  You pull away from our kiss and ask, "Are you going to answer it?"  You can't fathom the idea of letting a ringing phone ring – a quirk you got from your mother.  One of a million.

I ignore your words and concentrate on your lips.  This is the first time in a week we've really had time alone; you had a paper due Thursday that kept you in the library since Monday and I worked on Friday and we spent all of Saturday at the used bookstore on Dreary searching for the perfect anniversary gift to ourselves.  

My kisses convince you, and the phone is forgotten.  It rings too long, something I would complain about to my RA if he could do anything about it.  Finally the machine clicks on, an automated voice that contorts the names of my roommate and me into something barely recognizable.  "_For Landon __Belize__, press star 1.  For Jess Mariano, press star 2.  Mailbox 2 now recording."_

"Jess, like, hi?  This is Angelina Parker?  I was totally impressed with your theory on Einstein, like, how do you know so much about relativity?  You're so smart!  Anyway, I got your number from Mason.  He said you had were involved or something, but he didn't say if it was serious or anything, so, like… do you want to go to coffee sometime?  Or something?  Talk about quantum whatever?  I give great head, like, if that helps.  Just kidding!  Call me!"

During this time, you have sat up and are looking amused.  "Sounds clever, that one."

"No idea who she is," I say, and am not lying.

You walk over to my desk – to the thermos you left there an hour before.  You drink without saying anything to me and I wonder if I'll taste coffee-stained lips any time soon.

"Maybe I should ask Mason to stop giving out my number," I muse, and stretch out on my bed.

"Nah, I find the messages amusing."

"You don't seem threatened."

Laughing and still holding the coffee, you sit on my desk chair and spin.  You love that chair.  "Honestly, Jess?  I know you'd rather rip out your eyeballs than spend five minutes in the company of someone who sounds like she's from the valley."

"If she's that good, she can probably finish my blow job in four minutes," I tell you, and you laugh – because you were being kind, probably, and know my eyeballs would be in my hands within five _seconds_.

I wait for you to say something, but you are flipping through a book on my desk and don't stop giggling.

"What?"

"'Quantum whatever?'" you mock, and I know this isn't the last I'll hear about Angelina Parker.  I remind myself to kill Mason.

"All kinds of people want me," I say.  

Raising your eyebrow, you bring the book over to my bed and lay down next to me.  "Sure," you say condescendingly.  Then you order, "Read to me."  Because I'm a sap, and I've missed the look of rapture on your face as you listen to me, I comply. 


	2. Chapter Two

**Disclaimer**: The Gilmore Girls and their world are owned by Amy Sherman Palladino and the WB.  

**Everything else**: See chapter one.

You're looking at the ring with puzzlement – as if I've suddenly told you that I'm in love with Paris or hate music or plan to become a grocer for the rest of my life.  Your shock was expected but your confused look throws me off balance.

"You don't have to wear it," I hurry to assure you, hoping that I sound less stupid to you than I do to myself.  "I read about them in a book; you wouldn't like it, but it gave me the idea….  I figured Lorelai would skewer me if I proposed before we graduate, but that you could wear this on a necklace or something for a while if you wanted."

"It's a promise ring," you say, with definite pleasure, and tilt your head to the side.  

Good.  The befuddlement was making me nervous.  Now I'm calm again – sort of.  "You don't have to wear it," I say again.  A mark of how strange a feeling this is for me.  I'd wanted to wryly comment that your last eye exam must have went well.

"Maybe I will," but this time you're teasing.  Happy, I think.  You're beautiful, looking down at the ring and grinning.  Now I'm in my element, teasing you, bantering with you.  I'd been so afraid of screwing things up with us after all this time; it was a rush, knowing you still loved me, would still toss words back and forth.  

"Because you're hopelessly devoted to me, right?"

"No, it's just that pretty of a ring," you correct me.

"Glad I sprang for the real pearls, then."

Nod.  Then your brow crinkles – I shouldn't have mentioned money.  "Real pearls?" you ask, shooting for impressed but I read you too well, you're worried.  

"I stole them off a corpse," I quickly inform you.

"Oh," you say.  "Okay, then."  It's not the end of the conversation, not by a long shot, but you don't want to ruin the moment any more than I wanted to ruin us.  "How will I pick out a dress that will flatter both Mom and Lane?" you wonder suddenly. 

Quickly, I remind you that you have a long time to think about it.  "Years, even."

"It'll take that long!" 

To shut you up, I slide the ring onto your finger and toss the box away, claiming your mouth as mine.  We don't talk for a long time. 


	3. Chapter Three

**Disclaimer**: The Gilmore Girls and their world are owned by Amy Sherman Palladino and the WB.  

**Note**: I did my research – Quinnipiac University is 15 minutes away from Yale and, from the website and Princeton Review page, doesn't look too unlikely as a school for Jess.  I spent half an hour searching for a good school in the hopes of making this fic realistic and did everything short of setting up a campus visit.  If anyone knows more about it and thinks I'm insane for sending Jess there, well, I'm sorry.

**Everything else**: See chapter one.

When I reenter your dorm room with the scrambled eggs I just cooked, the TV is on and you are watching it intently.  For a minute I just stare at you, at that lock of hair that falls in front of your face, but then you notice me and wave me over.

"Look!  I haven't seen Grease 2 since Mom decided the real T-Birds would be ashamed of these wimpy ones and declared ours a Grease 2-free household," you tell me happily.  Another bit of Gilmore history that almost makes me wish I'd grown up in Stars Hollow, been witness to the arguments that took place in Luke's about lip-gloss and parodies of already bad movies.

"Ashamed of a motorcycle gang whose fight call is 'Let's Bowl'?  I'm shocked," I say as I set my eggs down on your desk and lift my fork.  Glad I make sure to keep your microfridge stocked.

You shrug.  "What can I say?  Mom's a funny lady."  The irony of your sarcasm hits you and you laugh with me for a moment, then you hiss.  "Shh, this is the good part."

This would normally be when I question the existence of a good part of Grease 2, but I don't bother.  You don't watch movies enough anymore.  Juniors have significantly more schoolwork at Yale than sophomores, which I consider wholly unfair.  With seniority should come privilege.  Unfortunately my own school seems to agree with Yale rather than me, and there is an unfinished paper on e.e. cummings stored in your computer that I ignore as I lean back and watch you watch the television.  

It alarms me how often I agree with Lorelai lately – not on big things, like you and your grandparents, or you and me, but on small stuff.  Like how you're too smart for your own good, and how Grease 2 is a travesty.  

Some guy has just failed to trick his girlfriend out of her virginity when I finally have to speak up.  "That girl is a good role model," I comment.  I don't mean it.  

You turn away from the TV and grump at me.  "She didn't sleep with him," you say.

"But not because she saw through his idiotic plan – because she was so stupid she opened the door on miles of radiation to go enlist him."

"She's not supposed to be a role model," you finally give up, after a second of thought and the realization that the girl is a full suit short of a deck.  This isn't enough for me – I'm too bored to let it end there.

"Seriously, though.  'Let's Do It For Our Country'?  People that stupid shouldn't be allowed to have sex."

"Girls fall for lines just as ridiculous every day," you point out.

I raise my eyebrows at you, a skill I thank my genes for every day; better strands of DNA than those who spawned and forgot about me.  "I wouldn't know," I taunt.  Reminding you of who did the seducing in our relationship.  To your credit, you don't blush as you did those first few weeks.

"Lucky you," you say instead, and then look at the clock.  "What time do you have to be at work?" you ask.

Suspiciously, because you know I clock in at six, I answer.  "Why?"

You gesture that I should join you on the bed, and I'm hoping you're about to turn the television off – but you just turn the volume up and fold yourself into my arms.  "Michelle Pfeiffer should be so proud," you say.  "This is a great song.  I can't believe HMO decided to finally show this again."  

"Lucky you," I reply.


	4. Chapter Four

**Disclaimer**: The Gilmore Girls and their world are owned by Amy Sherman Palladino and the WB.  

**Note**: Thanks for the reviews, especially the one who said I got Jess's voice down.  That's something I was nervous about.  And to the anonymous one who asked about the rating – I wasn't sure if the slightly dirty talk in the answering machine message in the first chapter rated an R.  Probably not, but for now I'm going to leave the rating the way it is.  Because I don't know what I'm going to add later.

**Everything else**: See chapter one.

Listening to one side of a phone call I'm on doesn't bother you because you like to make up imaginary replies that you would give me if you were the one I was talking with.  Listening to one side of a conversation you're having doesn't bother me because I tune you out unless you're discussing me.  If I ask, you will probably have some theory of how this illustrates the differences in our personalities, but I don't ask.

"You never know when you'll need a prayer shawl, though," you say convincingly.  I keep reading.

"I don't think he's Jewish, Lane – or 13."

"Was I supposed to be helping?"

"You could have sent me a memo or something!"

"I didn't want to go to your bat mitzvah, anyway."

"Really?"

"Sometimes I wonder if you two are_ really_ related."

"That's an awfully detailed alien abduction theory for the spur of the moment, Lane."

"You have too much time on your hands."

"Ooh, good song."

"See, that's why you're a drummer.  It doesn't matter if you're short or forget to put on pants."

"Jess isn't short, he's just not tall."

Hearing my name, I put my book down.  I've read it seven times, anyway. "_Lane_ thinks I'm short?"

You put your hand over the mouthpiece of the phone.  "She says I'm a magnet for the vertically challenged," you explain sweetly.  Lane thinks my height is something I'm sensitive about.  

I'm not offended, not at all.  "I'm taller than you, you know," I say anyway.

You tell Lane, "Jess is taller than me," grudgingly and then laugh.  Lane probably said something about a milk crate.  But she's the one who forgets to put on pants, so I won't be annoyed.  At least you don't have to use a ladder to kiss me.  

The next words out of your mouth are about Lane's newest hairstyle and I pick my book back up.

When you finally hang up the phone, you glare at me.  

"What?"

"You're coming with me to dinner tomorrow night," randomly but that's typical Rory behavior.

Not this topic again.  You've been trying to get me to join you during a Friday night dinner for a year now and I've successfully avoided it so far, but the look on your face now reminds me of when Lorelai asks Luke for coffee.  "Your grandparents hate me," I remind you.

You don't argue; it's true and you know it.  Maybe I can get out of this still.  But then you open your mouth and, "I'll tell Landon that he should feel free to borrow your CDs whenever he'd like," comes out.

Damn.  You're not allowed to talk to Lane anymore.


End file.
